B34C24 - Break Wood

I was fully Hork-Bajir now. I was done for. Tired inside and out.

<Take over, Aldrea,> I said.

Couldn't fight her. Needed her. My mind was going fuzzy, confused. Not sure what body I was in. Bits of unmorphed data, stray instincts, body images, echoes of fins and wings, all jumbled together.

Tseeeew! Tseeeew!

The battle above us on the battlements was joined again.

Aldrea propelled us down, crawling, Hork-Bajir style, down the dike wall, down into the water that no longer rang with the cries of dying Taxxons.

Two hammerhead sharks swam up beside us. There were bits of Taxxon flesh trailing from their rows of razor teeth.

Aldrea was running short of air. We were. She was searching in the murk for some sign on the vast tree trunk before us. Searching . . . the wood was swollen and discolored . . . gasping for breath.

<We're coming in!> Tobias yelled.

Pah-loosh! Pah-loosh! Pah-loosh!

Aldrea said, <Marco! Sink your blades into the wood, don't try to swim! Slow your heartbeats, it will preserve oxygen.>

There! The faint, almost invisible line. It was on the underside of the log, almost where it joined the tree beneath it.

Aldrea slashed with expert ease. Then she pulled.

Nothing!

<The water pressure!> she cried. <Too much. Can't do it!>

Marco crawled down beside us and added his strength.

Slowly the crack widened.

Tseeeeew! Tseeeew! Tseeeeew!

The troops on the battlement were firing into the water. They wouldn't be able to hit us, they couldn't even see us, but they'd soon parboil us.

WOOOOOSH!

The tree opened! Water rushed in, dragging us with it. A tangled mass of sharks, Andalites, and Hork-Bajir was swept inside and bobbed up, to my utter amazement, into air. There was no light, but there was definitely air.

It was silent inside the tree. All the sounds of battle were muffled.

Aldrea gasped, choked, breathed. Then, "Computer, identification: Aldrea-Iskillion-Falan. Code: . . ." She hesitated, then said, "Code: Mother loves Seerow. Ship, acknowledge by turning on exterior lights."

The sudden illumination seemed blinding after the total darkness.

We were floating in a placid pool at the bottom of what looked like an upturned, smooth, wooden bowl. We were inside the tree. Lying half-submerged in water was a stubby Yeerk ship, maybe forty feet long and almost as wide.

We paddled toward the ship and then I felt wood beneath my feet. We stood up.